See See TV

I remember early on in my life as a criminal defence lawyer being involved in a case where the police had footage from Closed Circuit Television. "I'll look at that first" I thought to myself. "Bound to sort everything out". Not so. Security camera footage is often frustratingly ambiguous and piecemeal in the contribution it makes to understanding a situation. Some cameras create very grainy footage, some are fixed and inevitably facing the wrong way, and in cases where what is said is just as important as what is done, they are of course next to useless. In the United Kingdom where you seem to be reminded every five minutes walking down the street that you are on CCTV, the money spent on equipment is said to be in the billions of pounds. Unfortunately only 3 per cent of crimes are being solved with the help of CCTV nationally. For city councils and business people in New Zealand the cost benefit analysis would seem to be clear and the rest of us will wonder whether our myriad daily uncredited walk-on parts on security screens are worth the intrusion.